Re: none

[Tobias Geerinckx-Rice]

Hiya, Pjotr,

On 2016-07-22 04:06, Pjotr Prins wrote:
> A provocation: because of purism GNU Guix takes an elitist approach.

I've honestly never felt any elitism coming from the Guix project.
Consistency, certainly. _Much_ more so than in most other free
software projects I know. I find it helps getting new users and/or
packagers started, and makes it easier and more pleasant to
contribute. It did for me and people I know.

Others are definitely having a very different experience. That's a
problem.

Discouraging proper code reviews won't do anything to solve that
problem, though.

> I am thinking that we need another project because it appears to be
> impossible to combine low threshold with GNU Guix goals.
>
> How about Alt-Guix, a packaging effort without opinion. As long as a
> package builds it gets accepted.

As long as it's not a fork in any way: yes please!

Sounds like a QA nightmare, but I'll gladly support anything that
will encourage and test some kind of decentralised repository
management in GNU Guix in the future. *mumbles some vague desires*

And knowing myself, I'd end up using it anyway for something shiny
or other.

Mandatory code reviews for Guix: still a good thing, though, and
not the problem.

> This can act as an incubator for main line. There will be no purist
> views on syntax, layout,

In the spirit of (friendly) provocation, I'd nitpick on the term
‘purist views’ and suggest the word ‘standards’ instead. ;-)

That's most likely the intention, and it's really how I experienced
it, during several months of more or less active Guix(SD) use and
lurking on this list, and it was a breath of fresh air. Maybe I'm
weird. I've been told.

But seriously: the code reviews? Most Free software projects don't
do nearly enough. Also, most Free software projects su^W should.

> license, github etc.

I've not seen any licence purism (yet) either. Anything Free, goes.
No?

I'm curious why GitHub's in that list. Sure, the upstream Guix
repository isn't going to move there any time soon. There's no
compelling reason to do so, and not relying on someone else's
good-will is always a good idea. Not relying on someone else's
proprietary secret SaaS is simply common sense. But I haven't
seen any purist elitism towards GitHub users. I'm one.

> I understand the need for purism, and applaud the idea, but we are
> throwing up too many barriers.
>
> Because GNU Guix is an extreme, ...

Wow. I don't see that. At all.

Sorry, that went on a bit longer than intended. I'm just wondering
what I missed, and hoping my experiences here won't hit a burn-out
threshold like it seems to do for some...

Kind regards,

T G-R